Report of Research Curb By Bush Stirs Criticism

By JOHN MARKOFF

Published: November 8, 1989

A bitter controversy has been touched off by reports that the Bush Administration plans to scale back the Pentagon's role in several technology-development programs intended to help American industries compete internationally.

The dispute centers on reported changes that would curtail the activities of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, and other Government initiatives. The changes have been discussed widely within the Government in recent days.

In recent years, Darpa has played a central role by financing and coordinating several research programs, including the development of advanced chip-making equipment and research on high-definition television. To Be Made Public

The dispute will be made public today by Representative Mel Levine, Democrat of California. He said he would contend in testimony before the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology that the Administration was seeking to eliminate money for Sematech, a chip-making consortium financed by Darpa, and other civilian technologies.

He also plans to discuss Bush officials' plans to reduce support for the Commerce Department's Technology Assessment program and to merge the Defense Manufacturing Board with the Defense Science Board.

''The bottom line is that the Administration is on a search-and-destroy mission to root out vital programs which are essential to the health of the economy,'' Mr. Levine said.

The Administration confirmed yesterday that it was planning to merge the Defense Manufacturing Board, organized in March to advise the Pentagon on manufacturing matters, into the Defense Science Board, an older body provides advice on technical matters.

But Robert C. McCormack, the Acting Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, strongly denied the reports that the Defense Department was considering whether to eliminate its support for Sematech. ''No way,'' he said. He added that a research program on high-definition video displays was continuing. Seen as Clarification

''There's a nervousness in the front office about starting our own industrial policy down here,'' said Mr. McCormack, who has been in charge of the department's programs to support the defense industrial base program, a group of technological research projects intended to help American corporations compete with those of Japan and Europe.

Mr. McCormack said he would not consider the planned measures a ''pullback'' of the Defense Department's role. Rather, he said, they are a clarification that the department will not subsidize other industries as it does the semiconductor industry through its support for Sematech, the consortium based in Austin, Tex.

He said merging the two advisory panels was suggested by John A. Betti, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, a former executive vice president of the Ford Motor Company who assumed his Pentagon position in August.